Human Nature and
Present Day Possibilities of Social Development

by

Mihailo Marković

1

The fundamental assumption of all revolutionary thought
is that it is possible to build a genuine community of free individuals who
have equal opportunities for development, creative work and satisfaction of
their basic material and spiritual needs. The traditional utopian way to justify
it was its derivation from an overoptimist conception of human nature.

This kind of method, although
for other purposes, was applied already in Plato's Politeia. His theory
of a strict hierarchical structure in an ideal state, with division into three
separate orders (the statesmen, the soldiers, and those who carry on the business
of providing for material needs) has been derived from his conception about
three essential powers of the human soul: reason, spirit and appetite, with
the corresponding cardinal virtues; wisdom, courage and temperance.

However in the hellenistic utopias
of Euemeros and Jambulos there are no castes, no slavery, no division of work,
no state power, and the people live in a state of permanent bliss in their distant,
isolated islands. Stoa philosophers (Zenon, Chrysippos and others) already dreamt
about a universal world state without wars, laws, courts, money, power over
people. An inherent goodness of human nature is obviously presupposed here and
in all other collectivist utopias. In More's Utopia there is no private
property, all individuals are equal and work physically for six hours [85/86]
daily out of a natural need, without any compulsion. There are no crimes, no
penalties, no egoism, no conflicts, not even religious ones, and everybody is
happy. According to More it is want and certain social conditions which make
people bad. "While there is still private property, while money is still
the measure of all values, it is hardly possible to lead, a just and happy policy.
. . While money still survives, poverty, drudgery and anxiety will weigh as
an inescapable burden upon the greatest and best part of mankind." More
is convinced that most evils would be uprooted by the abolition of money. "Because,
who does not see that fraud, theft, robbery, fight, quarrel, riot, murder, treason
and poisoning, which are now through daily punishment being more curbed than
dammed up, would all have to disappear with the elimination of money, and that
in the same moment fear, sorrow, anxiety, bother and tension would vanish too".
One century later Campanella expressed a similar belief: when there will no
longer be private property all selfishness would become pointless and pass out
of existence. People would no longer fight for wealth but for glory. "The
Solarians assert that poverty makes people mean, cunning, thievish, homeless,
lying. On the other hand, wealth makes them impudent, haughty, ignorant, treacherous,
boastful and heartless. In a genuine community, however, all are both rich and
poor in the same timerich because they do not wish what they don't already
have in commonpoor because nobody possesses anything, therefore the things
serve Solarians and do not enslave them."

Here we already find, in a specific
form, a basic overoptimistic, perfectionist view of intrinsic human goodness,
which dominated the whole history of European thought until the Twentieth century.
It was expressed in the Seventeenth century theory of the state of nature and
natural rights. According to Locke the state of nature is "a state of perfect
freedom and equality" and also a state of "peace, goodwill, mutual
assistance and preservation". (1)

It underlies the whole Eighteenth
century philosophy of the Enlightenment. In the well known words of Rousseau:
"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." (2) Man
is [86/87] also conceived as an essentially social, productive and rational
being, opened for an indefinite progress in the future. There is "no limit
set to the perfecting of the powers of man" wrote Condorcet. "Doubtless
this progress can proceed at a pace more or less rapid but it will never go
backward." (3)

2

Partly directly, partly mediated
by German classical philosophy, this optimistic spirit of the Enlightenment
finds a place in the thought of Marx. It is true that Marx rejected the current
concept of human nature as abstract and ahistoric. One of the implications of
his dialectical approach might have been the discovery of internal, contradictory
features in the Gattungswesen of man: good and evil, sociability and
class egoism, rationality and powerful irrational drives, creativity and destructivity
etc. Marx's very description of early capitalism implicitly suggests the idea
that something must have been basically wrong with man if he was able to build
up such a kind of social relations. His description of early communism is surprisingly
realistic: “Crude communism is the culmination of universal envy and leveling
down . . . Universal envy setting itself up as a power is only a camouflaged
form of cupidity which reestablishes itself and satisfies itself in a different
way.” (4) And still, in spite of the fact that both his philosophical method
and his empirical knowledge pushed him toward the recognition of a dark side
in human nature, Marx remained here ambiguouswith one pole of his thought
in the Enlightenment and, with the other in the Twentieth century. And the dilemma
which he had faced remained unsolved. The dilemma can be formulated in the following
way:

If human essence really is "the
totality of social relationships," (5) then this is a concrete and historical
conception embracing all basic contradictions of its time. However in this case
the question arises: is there a human nature in general or is it relative
to a specific historical epoch. If it [87/88] does not make sense to
speak about human nature in a general sense, with respect to the whole history
of mankind, then the concept becomes not only relativistic but also purely descriptive,
value neutral and inadequate as an anthropological basis for an activistic and
critical social thought and praxis. A historically given totality of social
relationships can be critically assessed and transcended only when confronted
with a vision of possible, more humane social relationships, which presupposes
a general value‑concept of human nature.

But, on the other hand, if a
general and value-concept of human nature is assumed as the fundamental criterion
of all critical assessment and the ultimate goal of human praxis, than there
is a serious danger of a naive, romantic and utopian idealisation of man.

There is no doubt that for Marx
a general idea of human nature was not only possible but necessary. He makes
a distinction between "constant drives which exist under all conditions
and which can be changed only in their form and direction they take," and
the relative drives and appetites which "owe their origin to a definite
type of social organization". (6) Then, arguing against Bentham Marx said
in Capital that “he that would criticise all human acts, movements, relations
etc. by the principle of utility must first deal with human nature in general,
and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch.” (7)

When we study carefully Marx's
early anthropological writings we must come to the conclusion that evil is excluded
from his concepts of human essence and human nature and is referred to as an
historically transient phase of alienation. While there still exists private
property, exploitation, wolfish relations among men, irrationality, selfishness,
greed, envy, aggressiveness etc, man is alienated from his essence. These negative
features of empirical mansuch as they have existed so far in historyare
not part of human nature; as long as they characterise human relations man is
not yet truly human. However, "communism is the positive abolition
of private property, of human self alienation, and thus the real
appropriation of human nature through and for man. It is, therefore, the return
of man himself as a social, i.e., really [88/89] human being, a complete
and conscious return which assimilates all the wealth of previous development."
(8)

Although Marx, contrary to the
often repeated objections of his critics, did not consider communism
the ultimate goal of history but only "the necessary form and the dynamic
principle of immediate future," (9) he did say that communism was "the
definitive resolution of the antagonism between man and nature and between man
and man." (10)

3

The experiences of Twentieth
century do not give us any reasons to believe that evil in man exists only in
the sphere of "facticity" and only in the time which preceeds genuine
human history. Our century will enter history not only as an age of technological
rationality, efficiency, and of considerable liberation but also as an age of
incredible eruptions of human irrationality and bestiality. The scope and character
of bloodshed and mass madness in the two world wars, under racism, during Stalin's
purges, yesterday in Korea, the Congo and Algeria, nowadays in Vietnam and Biafra
can no longer be explained by the romantic, dualistic picture of a latent positive
essence and a transient bad appearance. Evil must lie very deep. Obviously it
is also a latent pattern of human behaviour, which is the product of the whole
previous history of the human race, always ready to unfold as soon as favourable
conditions arise. It will certainly be transmitted to many future generations
and will need a very long period of time to vanish in its present forms.

What further complicates the
picture is a variety of new unexpected forms of evil. Life in abundance and
comfort has removed much suffering, illness, fear, primitive forms of struggle
and oppression, but it has created a whole now pathology. The most developed
societies have the highest percentage of suicide, mental illness, rape, juvenile
delinquency, drug addiction, alcoholism. Industry and civilization have made
man more rational, powerful and efficient in some [89/90] important spheres
of human life, but at the same time they have reduced warmth, sincerity, solidarity,
and spontaneity in human relations. Emotional hunger in material affluence,
desperate loneliness amidst the crowd, boredom in spite of a huge variety of
entertainment for sale, utter powerlessness amidst gadgets which multiply senses
and prolong hands that is the situation to which modern civilized man often
reacts by developing strong aggressive and destructive dispositions.

Another surprising and indeed
alarming Twentieth century experience is an obvious deterioration of motives
and a sharp moral decay within the leadership of many victorious revolutionary
movements. For most ordinary participants of those movements the phenomenon
was so astounding that they never grasped what happened. By now the sociological
dimension of this process is clear: it is the transformation of the revolutionary
avant-garde into a privileged bureaucratic elite, and it takes place whenever
the society as a whole is not sufficiently developed and integrated. The anthropological
dimension, though, remains obscure if only positive features have been projected
into the notion of human essence. That great revolutionaries, makers of history,
could have been tragically defeated due to a general immaturity of historical
conditions sounds plausible. That so many of them were able to become great
demagogues and tyrants seems incompatible with the whole of traditional utopian
anthropology.

The alternative offered is a
negative pessimistic utopian thought: evil is a permanent, constitutive feature
of human life. There is constantly in man: anxiety, fear, hatred, envy, egoism,
feeling of guilt, lust for self-affirmation and power. All modern culture: psychoanalysis,
social anthropology, philosophy of existence, surrealism, expressionism and
other trends of modern literature and arts have strongly emphasized this darker
side of human nature. Thus a strong anti-Enlightenment and anti-rationalist
attitude have emerged and prevailed in many countries, especially in both immediate
post war periods. That is why nowadays any projection of a happier and better
future society must answer the questionis it still possible to believe
in man, is he not basically irrational and sick and left to unknown, uncontrollable
evil forces in himself, which, like the Furies, destroy every good intention,
every noble project? [90/91]

4

The only answer which can be
given by a modern dialectical thinker is: stop considering man a thing!
He is neither a good nor a bad thing. It is not true that there is a logos
of historical process which will inevitably make empirical man increasingly
similar to an ideal harmonic, all-round entity. It is also not true that man
is confronted by such a chaotic world, outside and within himself, that all
his conscious striving to change, to create his world and himself anew, were
a labour of Sisyphus.

The former is not true because
all known social laws hold only under definite conditions and with many deviations
in individual cases. While these conditions last and while the individual is
atomised and isolated he has no power to change the laws. However, associated
individuals can, within the limits of their historical situation, change the
conditions and create a new situation in which new laws will hold. In spite
of considerable uncertainty and possible surprise for man whenever such a radical
change takes place, at least some implications of the conscious collective engagement
might be predicted, as both historical process and human nature have a definite
structure, no matter how many-valued, contradictory and open for further change.
That is why the second extreme conception is also not acceptable. Human freedom
cannot be construed (à la Sartre) as a total lack of any fixed content in man,
lack of being something, therefore a burden and a yoke. The world is not condemned
to stay eternally absurd as Camus believed. Man is not a complete stranger in
his world and he differs from Sisyphus in so far as he is able to change both
the world and his own nature. At least some stones remain at the brow of the
hill. At least in some historical moments large masses of people act in a way
which leads to considerable modifications in human nature. Change is possible
because human nature is nothing else but a very complex and dynamic whole full
of tension and conflict among opposite features and interests.

There is, first, a discrepancy
and an interaction between interests, drives and motives which belong to different
levels of socialisation: individual, group, generation, nation, class, historical
epoch, mankind as a whole. Thus, great personalities by their character, their
exceptional influence on the [91/92] behaviour of their class, nation,
generation and sometimes of the whole epoch contribute to the constitution of
human nature as a concrete universal. Viceversa, one of
the fundamental functions of culture is to make individuals internalise and
appropriate universal human values in a particular local, regional, national,
and class form.

Second, there are in
man internal contradictions between positive and negative, good and evil, rational
and irrational, desire for freedom and reluctance to assume responsibility,
creative and destructive, social and egoistic, peaceful and aggressive. Both
are human, and it is possible for their conflicting features to survive indefinitely.
But it is also possible that man will act during a prolonged period of time
in such a way that one pole would prevail over the other. We have a chance to
choose, within certain limits, what kind of man we are going to be. While practically
bringing to life one of possible futures we at the same time consciously or
involuntarily mould our own natureby fixing some of our traits, by modifying
others, by creating some entirely new attitudes, needs, drives, aspirations,
values.

A historical fact which has often been overlooked is that
some values which have been very important in the recent past lose their sense
and evoke satiety and revolt among the new generation. In such a moment, a sudden
mutation in human behaviour can be observed. This is especially the case with
those values which had originated in powerlessness and all kinds of privation,
and which have influenced human behaviour for such a long time that many theoreticians
took them for lasting characteristics of human nature.

Thus for example:

(1) Material scarcity has brought
about a hunger for goods, a lust for unlimited private property. This intemperate
hunger, this typical mentality of a homo consumens developed especially
when, for the first time in history, in industrial society, conditions were
created for mass satisfaction of material needs. However it loses a good part
of its meaning in the conditions of abundance in a postindustrial society. At
the scale of values some other things become more importantand one can
already observe this tendency in advanced industrial countries where people
increasingly give preference to travelling and education over food and clothing.
[92/93]

(2) A situation of powerlesness
and insecurity against alienated political power gave rise to a lust for power
and an obvious overestimation of political authority. This kind of obsession
especially developed at a mass scale in the most civilized countries in our
century due to the introduction of various forms of semi-democracy, i.e. such
a type of society in which political power is still alienated and established
in a strict hierarchical order, but at the same time open to a much large [sic]
circle of citizens. On the other hand, the rise of the will to power is caused
by the destruction of other values; it is a substitute for a will to spiritual
and creative power; it is an infallible symptom of nihilism and decay. However,
it loses any sense to the extent to which the basic political functions would
be deprofessionalized and to a considerable degree decentralized, to the extent
to which every individual would have real possibilities to participate in the
process of management.

(3) In a society in which a
person is condemned to routine technical activitywhich was not freely
chosen by him and does not offer opportunity for the realization of his potential
abilitiesthe motive of success naturally becomes the primum mobile
of all human activity, whereas pragmatism takes the ground as the only relevant
philosophy. Nevertheless, one can already envisage conditions under which basic
changes in human motivation might take place. If an individual would have a
real possibility to choose his place in the social division of work according
to the type of his abilities, talents and aspirations, if in general, professional
activity would be reduced to a minimum and to a function of secondary importance
with respect to the freely chosen activities in the leisure time, the motive
of success would lose its dominant position. Success would no longer be regarded
as supreme and worthy of any sacrifice, but only as a natural consequence of
something much more important. This more important and indeed essential thing
is the very act of creation (no matter whether in science, art, politics or
personal relations), the act of objectification of our being according to "the
laws of beauty," the satisfaction of the needs of another man, putting
together a genuine community with other men through the results of our action.

In general: scarcity, weakness,
lack of freedom, social and national insecurity, a feeling of inferiority, emptiness
and [93/94] poverty to which the vast majority of people are condemned,
give rise to such mechanisms of defense and compensation as national and class
hatred, egoism, escape from responsibility, aggressive and destructive behaviour
etc. Many present-day forms of evil really could be overcome in a society which would secure for each individual the satisfaction of his basic vital
needs, liberation from compulsory routine work, immediate participation in decision-making,
a relatively free access to the stores of information, prolonged education,
a possibility to appropriate genuine cultural values, and the protection of
fundamental human rights.

However, we are not yet able
to predict today which new problems, tensions and conflicts, which new forms
of evil will be brought about by the so called post-industrial society. For
this reason we should be critical towards any naive technicist optimism which
expects all human problems to be solved by improving the conditions of material
abundance.

A considerable improvement in
the living conditions of individuals does not automatically entail the creation
of a genuine human community, in which there is solidarity, and without which
a radical emancipation of man is not possible. For it is possible to overcome
poverty and still retain exploitation, to replace compulsory work with senseless
and equally degrading amusements, to allow participation in insignificant issues
within an essentially bureaucratic system, to let the citizens be virtually
flooded by carefully selected and interpreted half-truths, to use prolonged
education for a prolonged programming of human brains, to open all doors to
the old culture and at the same time to put severe limits to the creation of
the new one, to reduce morality to law, to protect certain rights without being
able to create a universally human sense of duty and mutual solidarity.

5

The key problem which mankind
will have to face for another long period of time is: how to avoid that ruling
over things does not, time and again, in every new social model, revert
to ruling over people.

This problem is of fundamental
importance for any radical vision of the future: the existence of alienated
concentrated [94/95] economic and political power in the hands of any
ruling elite: of warriors, private owners of the means of production,
managers, professional politicians, or even scientists and philosophers, would
impede any radical changes in the sphere of human relationships. The division
of people into historical subjects and objects would entail a hypertrophy of
the apparatus of power, a conservation of the ideological way of thinking, a
control over the mass media of communication, a limitation of political and
spiritual freedom. Consequently a permanent concentration of power in the hands
of any particular social group would be an essential limiting factor of the
whole further development.

Fortunately, scientific and
technological progress with all far-reaching consequences in the economic, social
and cultural plane opens the historical possibilities for a radical supersession
of all those institutions which in past history have served to rule over people
(such as the state, political parties, army, political police, security service
etc.).

(a) These institutions are necessary
to hold together, to protect, regulate and direct societyonly while it
is dismembered and disintegrated, which is the case with all backward and even
semi-industrial societies. While there is a multitude of clashing particular
interests: of various enterprises and economic branches, various regions and
nationalities, a particular force is needed which will mediate, arbitrate and
direct in the name of the general interest, although the general interest has
not yet been constituted. However, one of the most important consequences of
the present scientific and technological revolution is the dissolution of all
artificial barriers and the integration of small, relatively autonomous economic
systems into big ones.

(b) Until recently big systems
required large bureaucratic apparatuses. However a profound change is taking
place while we are entering a new phase of the technological revolutionthe
era of cybernetics. All routine administrative operations including the analysis
of information and the search for optimal solutions within some given programmes
will be performed much faster and in a more accurate way by electronic computers:
a considerable part of bureaucracy would thus lose any raisond'être.

(c) Of all various strata of
contemporary bureaucracy the only one which will surely survive are experts
who make [95/96] and test the alternative programmes within the framework
of the goals, criteria and established priorities of the accepted general politics.
It is essential that the only remaining professional politicianshighly
skilled administrators and executivesbe strictly subordinated to the
elected political bodies. In their hands still remains a considerable power
of influence. In difference from other citizens they have free access to all
avenues of information. They have more time than others to study data and to
try to establish certain general trends. By mere selection and interpretation
of data, by the choice of certain possibilities and the elimination of the others
in the process of the preparation of alternative solutions, and finally by a
biased presentation of the results of accepted programmes professional politicians
can retain a considerable capacity to induce a desired course of action. In
order to check this capacity and keep it within certain limits, several possibilities
are open:

First, the subordination
of professional politicians to the corresponding assemblies and councils of
self-government must be as complete as to allow full responsibility and immediate
replacement of any official.

Second, professional
political experts will have different roles and to a certain extent different
interests. They should not be allowed to form a political block or to control
any kind of political organization. Their function of experts will be best performed
if they eliminate any personal or group loyalties and any ideological considerations,
and if they would be obliged to follow the principle of technological rationality,
i.e., to try to find the most adequate means for the goals laid down by the
elected representatives of people.

Third, their whole
work should be critically examined by independent political scientists. Future
society must pay very serious attention to the critical scientific study both
of politics in general and of actual political practice. In difference from
the present day "politicology", which is either apologetic or turned
toward remote events, future society will need a political theory which will
try to discover limitations in actual practice and which will not only study
phenomena aposteriori, but will also make projections and prepare
solutions parallel to the work of the experts in the state apparatus. [96/97]

(d) The most important and indeed
revolutionary change in the political organization of the future society should
be concerned with the determination of general policies, with the definition
of general goals, and criteria of evaluation of possible alternative political
programmes. It is not only the case that these key political functions must
be radically democratized: the very idea of politics implicit in them will be
fundamentally altered. According to Weber (11) politics is (1) the set of efforts
undertaken in orders to participate in ruling or in order to influence the distribution
of power either among the states or among different groups within one state,
(2) this activity is basically the activity of the state, and (3) the state
is "a relationship of domination of man over other man, based on the means
of legitimate violence." Politics in this sense, as compared with true
praxis, was characterized by Marx as the sphere of alienation.
Political activity could then become praxis under the following conditions:

(1) Political praxis is the
domination of man over things. Things, however, in the human world are the products
of objectified human work. Therefore, political praxis is essentially a control
and a rational direction of the social forces which, in fact, are les forces
propres of the social man.

(2) The criterion of evaluation
among various alternatives of this process is the satisfaction of authentic
human needs in all the richness of their specific manifestations in the given
historical conditions.

(3) The goal of political praxis
is not the domination of one social group over the rest of society; therefore
this is an activity which has universal character and concerns each human
individual.

(4) Political praxis is not
isolated from other modes of praxis. Contrary to alienated political activity,
it is based on a philosophical vision of human nature and history; it need not
violate moral norms; its choices presuppose a scientific knowledge of all real
possibilities in the given historical situation. At last it contains also elements
of a noble struggle, of a game, of an art. To act politically in a human way
implies, among other things, "to create according to the laws of beauty."
[97/98]

(5) Such an activity without
subjugation, tutelage and fear is extremely attractive and becomes a daily need.
By participating in such an activity the individual develops an important dimension
of his social being and gets hold of ample space in which he can express many
of his potential capacities and possibly affirm himself as a gifted, strong
and creative personality.

This conception of political
praxis is far from being only a piece of pure imagination or of philosophical
poetry. All those who have participated in a really revolutionary movement have
experienced what politics could be, for at least a limited period of time, when
it is not a monopoly of a privileged elite. The question arises, however: is
not every such attempt at the democratization and humanization of politics limited
in time and eventually doomed to failure? Is it not possible only during the
period of revolutionary transformation and destruction of the old power? Does
not time and again a moment come when the principle of freedom has to be replaced
by the principle of order, when a new social organization begins to function,
when the revolutionary avant-garde becomes a new bureaucracy overnight?
Is not there always the need for some kind of elite in a complex modern society?

The decisive new historical fact relevant to this question
is that a considerable reduction of compulsory work and production, which will
take place on a mass scale in an advanced future society, will liberate enormous
human energies and talents for political life. The general education and culture,
including political knowledge of these potential political "amateurs"
need not be inferior to that of the "professionals". By participating
in local communal life and in various voluntary organizations many of them have
acquired satisfactory experience in public relations and the art of management.
It should also not be overlooked that due to the penetration of modern mass
media of communication into most of its corners and secrets, politics has been
demystified to a large extent, and many of its institutions and personalities
are losing the magic charm they had in the past. Thus the old-time distance
in competence between the leaders of political organizations and their rank
and file, and in general between a political elite and the large masses of people
is being melted away. For the first time in history it becomes clear that in
the social division of work there [98/99] is no need for a special profession
of people who decide and rule in the name of others. Bureaucracy as an independent,
alienated political subject becomes redundant.

6

That the socialist movement
until this moment did not succeed in developing a consistent and concrete theory
about the transcendence of bureaucracy and the political structure of the new
society is the consequence of a really paradoxical development during the last
two decades.

First, a series of revolutions
took place in backward East European and Asian countries guided by a theory
of democratic socialism, which was created in the conditions of relatively advanced
Western capitalism. Marx would never call "socialism" an essentially
bureaucratic society. He knew that in the initial place of industrialization
really communal social control over the productive forces is not yet possible.
That is why in Grundrisse der Kritik des Politischen Oekonomie he stated
explicitly that such a possibility would be created in an advanced society in
which "the relations of production will became universal, no matter how
reified," in which man will no longer be directly governed by people but
by "abstract reified social forces." Only then will the freely associated
producers be able to put the whole process of social life under their conscious,
planned control. But this requires a material basis "which is the product
of a long and painful history of development". (12)

It is pointless to argue now
to what extent Lenin and the Bolshevik Party were aware of the essential difference
in the conditions in their country in 1917-1922 and the conditions under which
Marx's theory of self-government were applicable. The fact is that Lenin and
his collaborators did not believe that a socialist revolution in Russia would
be successful without a revolution in the whole of Europe. The institution of
the Soviets, introduced already during the First Russian revolution in 1905,
was a specific form of self-government. Unfortunately, by the end of the civil
war there were no longer Soviets and no longer a strong organized working class.
In order to survive, in order to defeat external enemies, counter-revolutionary
forces, white terrorism, hunger, [99/100] and to overcome the total economic
collapse, the Bolshevik Party had no other alternatives but either to surrender
or to proceed by military and bureaucratic methods. While this dilemma was a historical necessity, nothing of the sort can be said about the later crimes
of Stalin's or about the purely ideological identification of this new type
of post-capitalist bureaucratic society with socialism.

It follows then, that the
revolutionary movement in Russia, China and other underdeveloped countries did
not develop a theory about the supersession of bureaucracy by the system of
self-government because historical conditions for such a radical change of the
political structure did not yet exist.

Paradoxically enough, such a
theory has not yet been developed by the New Left in much more favorable
conditions. Due to the high level of material development, economic integration,
education, and also to the considerable democratic achievements in the past,
at least in some Western countries bureaucratization in the post-capitalist
development is by no means the only and necessary way. Instead of looking for
alternative forms of political organization based on the principle of self-government,
a widespread attitude in the student movement and among the New Left is distrust toward any kind of political institutions. This kind of attitude
is easy to understand as a violent reaction to the process of obvious degeneration
of the revolutionary state in the victorious revolutions in the East. It involves,
however, a mistaken generalization from experiences which have a specific regional
character. A dialectical denial of the state is much less and at the same time
much more than a contestation totale. Much less: because some
of the functions and institutions of the state will have to survive and to be
incorporated into the new political structure. Much more: because a total
negation of the establishment is practically no negation at all. A real
negation of the state is the abolition of its essential internal limit: a monopoly
of power in the hands of a particular social group, use of apparently legitimate
violence in order to project and promote the interests of this privileged elite.
This abolition does not lead to anarchy and lack of any organized authority,
but to an alternative really democratic system of management, without any external
alienated power. [100/101]

To be sure, socialist democracy
is not a perfect political form of society. Democracy does not secure the
most rational and human solutions, even less does it guarantee human
happinessit is solely a form of social organization which offers optimal
possibilities in the foreseeable future. Whether this possibility will be realized
depends upon the creativity, imagination, strength of will, intellectual and
moral power of personalities who happen to assume supreme political responsibilities
at a certain moment, and also upon the mobilization of the best forces of the
whole society.

In difficult moments of frustration
and defeat (and these will always accompany man: any picture of future society
as a state of permanent bliss is utterly unrealistic) there will always be attempts
to retrogress from self-government to some more authoritarian political structure.

Therefore, it is of essential
importance to undertake every measure to preclude alienation of that limited
power which is concentrated in the hands of central bodies of self-government.
This power must be temporary (implying a necessary rotation of individuals in
possession of political authority); it must not bring with it any permanent
place in the hierarchy of power, and by no means any material privileges, any
salary exceeding incomes of highly qualified and creative workers and scientists.
In order to hinder possible deformation of its political institutions, society
should undertake in advance certain measures to protect itself from demagogy,
lust for power, and potential "charismatic" leaders. Surely, the best
protection is appropriate political education, development of a critical spirit,
building up of a free and independent public opinion. This will be the most
efficient way to identify promptly those retrogressive political tendencies
and to secure mass resistance to them. The traditional collective psychological
disposition to glorify, to adore, to be always ready for a new myth and a new
cult of personality should be replaced by an attitude of criticism and a resistance
to any potential Machtmensch, and to any authoritarian pattern of behaviour.
In a future society this will be much easier to achieve then [sic] nowadays,
not only due to new accumulated historical experience and greatly improved education,
but also due to a new feeling of legal and economic security, which is, for
most individuals, an indispensable psychological condition for critical public
engagement. [101/102]

Ruling people like things is
the fundamental social evil produced by previous history. The evil is
double, because it degrades both the one who rules and the one who is being
ruled. The radical supersession of this evil is historically possible in future
post-industrial society.

But this possible future will
become a practical human reality only if some essential preliminary steps toward
it are made at once and now.

[Notes]

(1) John Locke, Treatise of Government,
B. II ch. 2. 5.

(2) Jean Jacques Rousseau,
Le Contract Social, I. ch. 1

(3) Condorcet, Progrés de
l'Esprit Humain, Intr. to Epoque I.

(4) Marx, Economic
and Philosophical Manuscripts, transl. by Botto more in Marx's Concept
of Man by Erich Fromm, York 1961, p. 125.

Commentary
on Marković

by

Mathilde Niel

I would like to add several
clarifications to the report of Professor Marković with which I agree.
I agree especially with his remarkable analysis that the evil from which man
is suffering today seems more profound than the early Twentieth century socialists
themselves had imagined. Even though technical development and abundance may
allow men of the industrialized countries to find a certain degree of happiness,
new evils have arisen (various forms of mental pathology caused by the absence
of creativity and solidarity in work, the rebirth of aggression, various tyrannies
and authoritarian bureaucracies in the socialist countries, etc.). Hardly does
man free himself from certain alienation (material misery, rigidly fixed
moral religions, various fetishisms, etc.) when he tumbles into new alienations
(the cult of Things, of technology, the idolatry of new leaders, the rebirth
of nationalism). As Erich Fromm describes it in his work, by revolts and revolutions
man comes to free himself negatively (freedom from), but he does
this without arriving at the attainment of authentic libertypositive
liberty (freedom to). [102/103]

However, man is no more fundamentally
evil (as psychoanalysis and existentialism would have him believe) than he is
good (as the Rousseauists and the idealists claim. It is just that at the last
stage of animal evolution the appearance of consciousness (of himself
and of the world) created a unique situation for the human animala human
situation (more than a human nature).

Because he is a conscious being,
man experiences himself as cut off from his environment. Like every living being,
he cannot live without feeling related to his environment. However at his level
of consciousness he cannot unite himself with the world by instinct in the way
an animal can; his problem is to unite himself humanly to the world.
He must unite to the world while remaining completely autonomousthat is,
fully personalized. But the problem of "relating to the world," which
has to be resolved in a completely new way, poses serious difficulties for him.
In fact, man seems to have two potentials in himself (we have here the problem
of Good and Evil, but under a new formnon‑normative:

1) Man can relate creatively
to the world, remaining autonomous (he achieves the productive synthesis
of his own individual potentialities and the environment.). He relates to it
by means of knowledge, manual work, scientific, literary, artistic and manual
creativity, and by the use of cooperation, by friendship, and by solidarity.
And what is more, he is able to do this daily, without having to wait for that
ideal society of the future, whatever it may be.

2) But if the economic, social
and cultural conditions and if the internal conditioning produced by education
and the environment keep him from uniting with the worldthus if the soil
in which he develops is poor, then the individual, unable to relate creatively
to the world, will experience the feeling of his separation as an anguish which
he seeks to escape by looking for a form of non-productive union which
will give him back his securityunfortunately at the cost of his autonomy.
This is how there arise religions, idolatries, mysticisms, various sacramentalizations,
the need for possessions, the will for power, etc.

But the tragedy is that in his
goal of finding a reassuring feeling of union, man is also led to identify with
some sort of Absolute (Nation, God, Race, Ideology, or even his own Self).
And he always places in opposition to this Absolute an [103/104] Anti-Absolute
(the other Nation, the other Race, the other God, the other Ideology, the
other Self). Then he tends to want to destroy that obstacle to his desire
for unionthus to destroy the anti-Absolute and those men who appear to
him to embody it. Rather than being creative, his behavior becomes violent
and destructive; it is combat, warit is what has been called Evil,
what is nothing other than a deviant, pathological form of behavior.

As Erich Fromm has shown, a
man who is unable to live in a creative and social manner is consequently led
to live in a violent and destructive fashion. It is the same force, the
same source which pushes him to be creative and responsible, orif
it veers from its courseto be aggressive and destructive.

For this reason, it seems necessary:

1) to be aware of the problem
of man and his alienation, and to study it scientifically, and to educate the
greatest possible number of men to understand it;

2) at the same time to work
to transform the economic and social system whenever it tends toward a destructive
sort of potential, so that the environment will permit man to live, in a practical way, cooperative and productive relationships (only the creative
praxis can prevent identifications with the Absolute from being formed);

3) to begin to live, in our daily social action, the complementary union of autonomy and sensibility
whenever the conditions of life will permit us to do so.

But it must not be forgotten
that as long as man has these two potentials in him, no matter how perfect the
economic and social conditions may be, he will always be ready to give in to
alienation (that is, to become authoritarian, dependent, possessive, hateful,
destructive). We will always have to be watchful in our social relations.

I think that this way of considering the human problem helps
us to avoid the optimistic and the pessimistic outlooks for man, and that perhaps
it answers to some extent the concerns of Professor Marković.